Tuesday, August 25, 2009

I think there is some universal parental law that says that parents must do things that embarrass their children, especially at school. My childhood cause for therapy was the lunches my mom packed for us. She was a super-economizer, she had to be with seven kids, and she bought the cheapest store brand bread 5 loaves at a time which she'd throw in the freezer. When it was sandwich making time, she'd thaw a loaf and lay one slice of Buddig lunch meat - the kind you can read a book through - between two soggy, misshappen slices of bread. This was accompanied by the aluminum foil mystery wad of carrot sticks, macaroni salad, or whatever side dish we didn't finish the night before. It was better than going hungry, just barely.

My children's cause for therapy is their book covers. I've never had luck with those stretchy fabric covers that schools suggest you buy that never fit or stay on and cost $3 each (four kids, four or five books a piece, you can do the math). So I've always used good, old fashioned, earth friendly, brown grocery bags and a bit of duct tape resulting in a beautifully and sturdily covered book like so: (SS stands for Social Studies)

My kids hate them. They are embarrassed by them, especially my oldest son who immediately doodles all over his with a Sharpie. I honestly think this kind of embarrassment is good for kids. Keeps them humble. But I was met with such protestations this year that the compassionate and creative side of me was moved. So, in the spirit of the brown grocery bag, I used shopping bags from the mall and a whole lot more duct tape to get this result:

I'm now going to have to think of something else to embarrass my kids with. Maybe I'll order braces with head gear for all of them whether they need it or not.

Seriously? Your kids don't like the paper bag book covers? Um, I went to Harbour Pointe and Kamiak with all the snotty rich kids, and we all had paper bag book covers. They gave us a fun place to doodle and write notes with friends. Fabric covers earned weird looks.

Your kids got off easy! There's WAY more embarrassing things you could do to them!

Okay, not to pour salt in the wound, but you can chalk your sad lunch sandwiches up to another way in which Nay and Jay were SPOILED!!! I remember Nate having the most gourmet, delicious sandwiches in his lunches in high school. I'd always snag a few bites. Your mom would make him BLT's and egg salad on thick, whole grain type bread. I guess living in Japan, where everything was really high quality helped. But they really were/are spoiled.

We always had brown paper bag book covers and I was always thankful to have a place to doodle all year long while the teachers did their best to put me to sleep.

Well I think that's what they were trying to do, I wasn't really paying attention...

ADD was rampant way before they came up with an acronym for it, lol. And it probably all originates with those brown paper bag book covers that mom made that kept everyone distracted with their painstaking doodling...

Either that or perhaps that mystery meat that we observed in our soggy sandwiches was the culprit :)